The Hurstville building currently featuring Stokland Furniture Depot is a bit like your old fridge covered in magnets that vary wildly in their level of ancientness. The site has put up with a variety of variety shops (sorry) since 1914.

While it’s currently Stokland Furniture Depot (at last, furniture shopping without the c—s), in a previous life the building played host to…

…Bag A Bargain, and that Escher-esque door to nowhere – a sight so crazy it’s clearly driven the Bag A Bargain mascot downright nutty. Earlier still, the building was…

…Coles Variety store (later Fossey’s), which acted as a thoroughfare to Forest Road. I hope the equivalent sign at the front of the building on Forest Road warned thoroughfare users of the doozy of a step waiting for them on the other side of the door.

UPDATE: Thanks to this Leader article from December 1989, we can finally know what caused Coles Variety to pack up and leave. Spoiler: it was Westfield.

The Leader, December 5 1989

Even if we choose to accept K-Mart as the spiritual successor to Coles Variety – which I don’t – can its champions boast that it has an ice cream parlour at the front of the store? I didn’t think so.